Hotshot Harry Barber is a loose cannon. He steals muscle cars, leads the cops on chases on the back roads of Youngstown, Ohio, and models his look and style on Steve McQueen, his favorite actor.

For Enzo Rotella, he’s the perfect getaway driver for a heist he’s planning: to rip off President Richard Nixon’s illegal slush fund, stashed at a bank in Southern California.

Based on the true story of the 1972 United California bank robbery in Laguna Niguel (Orange County) that at the time was the largest cash haul in United States history, “Finding Steve McQueen” is a low-budget, lighthearted crime film/love story that mines a certain “True Romance” vibe. It’s a lot of fun.

The movie opens in 1980 in a small Pennsylvania town. Harry (Travis Fimmel) meets his longtime girlfriend Molly (Rachael Taylor) in a diner. He has a story to tell her: who he really is, and how eight years earlier he and the crew from Youngstown traveled to California to rob the president.

Cutting back and forth between then and 1972, when the Nixon-hating Enzo (William Fichtner) assembles his crew and plans the caper, and throughout the ’70s as the relationship between Harry and Molly develops, “Finding Steve McQueen” emphasizes comedy and romance. A thriller it’s not.

Even after the knock-off, when FBI agent Howard Lambert (Forest Whitaker) is on their trail, director Mark Steven Johnson emphasizes character over suspense — clues and detective work take a back seat to the interesting professional relationship between Howard and his fellow agent (Lily Rabe).

Fimmel, star of the History Channel series “Vikings” and most recently seen in “Lean on Pete,” has charm to burn and really could play McQueen in a biopic. Taylor, who plays Trish Walker in Netflix’s Marvel series “Jessica Jones,” takes a nothing role and adds a layer of complexity — she has a story too.

His favorite movie is “Bullitt.” Hers is “Bonnie and Clyde.” No one is saying “Finding Steve McQueen” is near that level, but it’s a slickly made piece of entertainment that’s a good time out at the movies.